Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Ray Noorda dies at 82

Ray Noorda, the former Novell chief executive hailed as "The Father of Network Computing" and one of the early leaders of the software industry, died Monday of an Alzheimer's-related illness at his Utah home, his venture capital firm said.

Noorda, 82, is also credited as one of first high-tech executives to take on Microsoft over its dominance on the desktop and with helping to create the reseller approach to boost sales by allowing partners to offer its software.

Noorda served as president and chief executive of Utah-based Novell from 1983 to 1995 where he spearheaded Netware, the network operating system linking desktop computers to printers, file servers and directories.

Many forget this, but Noorda was so consumed by a desire to defeat Bill Gates that he overpaid for WordPerfect Corporation and Borland's Quattro Pro spreadsheet so that his company could offer an Office competitor. (They paid a combined $1 billion for the products.) The company latter sold both assets at a massive loss and got into the Linux business. It was pretty much downhill from 1994 on, sadly.